This morning I as I was reading the latest all-church email from our mission committee asking for volunteers for various evacuees' needs in the area, I was thinking about how this whole situation reminds me again of our connectedness with others.
Here we were in the Houston area as Katrina approached, "fat, dumb and happy" so to speak, tracking the storm but not unduly concerned for ourselves. Then WHAMMO! All H*&!! breaks loose in Louisiana and points east and we find ourselves coping with hundreds of thousands of people who are displaced and lost everything.
The hurricane disaster contingency plans that were in place for Houston/Galveston were quickly taken off the shelf and implemented for evacuees from hundreds of miles to the east. That's why the city was able to act quickly and effectively, for the most part.
With apologies to John Donne:
No one is an island
Entire of itself
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If part of Louisiana is washed away by the sea,
Texas is the less.
As well as if a promontory were
As well as if a manner of your own
Or of your friend's were.
Each person's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in humanity.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Entire of itself
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If part of Louisiana is washed away by the sea,
Texas is the less.
As well as if a promontory were
As well as if a manner of your own
Or of your friend's were.
Each person's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in humanity.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
1 comment:
I don't know if Donne would approve, but that was well done.
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